Dona: For many years, it was a given that if Marcia, Stan or
Rebecca covered something, the show ended up cancelled. The Cape, The
Event, No Ordinary Family, Brothers & Sisters -- which Rebecca only
covered in what ended up the show's last season -- are just some of the
examples. Rebecca, explain how that stopped to be true for you. A lot
of people don't know this story.

Rebecca: Sure. Every show I was covering got the axe. I hated
Community. As I announced at my site, I started covering Community in
the hopes that my curse would continue and the show would be cancelled.
That didn't happen, sadly. Season four was actually funny. Dan Harmon
was gone and the show finally worked. Then he came back and the result
is the all time worst season. No one watches this show. And no one
watches because it's not funny. A tiny group of pathetic people who
hate sitcoms and think they're hipsters watch this show. They hate
sitcoms and see the lack of actual stories and anything anyone could
relate to as 'hip' and 'deconstructive.' No, it's just awful television
and now with Danny Glover gone, the show has lost even more that it
couldn't afford to lose. Season four had actual stories. It would be
one thing if Dan Harmon's way delivered an audience but it doesn't. It
fails to. The show needs to be cancelled.

Dona: You cover two shows you love right now: Scandal and Revenge.

Rebecca: Revenge is the big improvement this year. Scanadl,
with its shortened schedule and other issues, including shooting around
Kerry Washington when Olivia is the main character, is losing its way
this season. When you have Olivia laughing at the deaths of Daniel
Douglas and Supreme Court Justice Verna, both of whom were murdered, you
may even have jumped the shark. She was in shock? Yeah, so what. And
the gladiators become the bad guys.

Stan: I don't see any Black couples on The CW. I see interracial
couples. As I pointed out, I have no problem with interracial couples.
But I do have a problem with White couples on The CW when every person
of color is paired with a White person. There's a reason for it and
it's not 'social engineering.' The reason is that there are two few
African-American actors on The CW. White couples and White characters
with person of color characters are possible because they're mainly
hiring White actors. Now I'm not asking for very much here. I'm not
demanding that X number of actors be Black, for example. But as an
African-American male, I don't think I'm wrong to expect that a network
with multiple couples on nearly every show should be able to provide one
couple where both characters are Black.

Dona: It is strange and it does need to be addressed. Anyone else want to comment?

Mike: I'm not planning on covering The 100 but I have covered the
first two episodes. For those who haven't seen the show, it's
post-nuclear, set in the future. To survive the nuclear war, a number
of people are in space on an arc. It can't support the population. So
100 young adults are sent down to earth to see if the radiation has
reduced or gone away and if it's capable to live there. The landing
kills 2 so you've got 98 people. Why is it that only one, out of 98, is
African-American? The son of the president. It's a real problem with
The CW and Stan was right to note it.

It was a lively discussion. I hope you read it. I also hope you read Ava and C.I.

In the documentary, there's a clip of a British woman interviewing King
and King deflects from LFBTQ to note she supports "individuals rights."
There's another clip of a modern day Billie Jean King saying she's
always happy anytime she can help the LGBT community.

Both clips speak to how she was and is apart from that community because
she chooses not to embrace it. The filmmakers seem unaware of that.
They also seem to fail to notice that Billie's more than eager to brag
about this 'hot' guy she danced with or how she married Larry because,
"that's true, we wanted to have sex." But Billie Jean King today, in a
long term relationship, apparently lives on a higher plane than the
other members of the animal kingdom, one where sex is never thought or
mentioned.

It took the woman 17 years after she admitted to sex with another woman
to stop pretending it was a one-time thing and admit she was gay.

You sort of get the feeling if she were required to stand in a
semi-crowded room and declare, "I'm Billie Jean and I eat p**sy," her
head would explode.

She did real damage and the documentary hides that and paints her as a hero.

We wouldn't have to be talking about this if PBS had stuck to the facts or, barring that, just stuck to sports.

To claim that Billie Jean King left the closet in 1981 is to falsify, to
lie. She came out, finally, in 1998. Prior to her coming out, she
publicly repeated every disgusting stereotype and smear about and
against gay people possible in order to attack the credibility of
Marilyn -- a woman she once claimed to have loved. But any feelings for
Marilyn took a second seat to her convincing the world that she made a
'mistake' and would never again stain her purity by engaging in sexual
congress with a woman.

Each season, the PBS staple gets further and further from the truth. We think it's high time they changed the show names to American Forgers.

Back in 1981, to protect Billie Jean King, the movement was willing to throw lesbians under the bus.

Monday, March 31, 2014. Chaos and violence continue, US Senator Patty
Murray calls out the latest VA scandal, the NSA leaks it on itself (I
believe we call that "piss") and no one notices that the NSA is lying
because apparently no one in the press thinks about Iraq anymore, US
President Barack Obama wants to keep arming thug Nouri al-Maliki, 2
Iraqi children are dead today and that's on Barack because he supplied
the weapons and because he provides the 'intel,' Sattar Sa'ad won The Voice Arabia competition, and much more.

In the latest scandal for the Dept of Veterans Affairs, they're turning
away homeless veterans. Senator Patty Murray (Chair of the Senate
Budget Committee) wants to know what the Dept thinks it's doing. Her
office issued the following today:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Murray Press Office

Monday, March 31st, 2014 202-224-2834

Senator
Murray Introduces Emergency Bill to Reverse New VA Policy Change that
Has Shut the Doors of Homeless Shelters to Veterans

Veterans have been turned away in the wake of
sudden VA policy change made in February that limits eligibility for
indispensable grant program that supports homeless shelters and
providers

After Murray introduces legislation, VA NOW says it will temporarily rescind the policy change but final legal opinion could still shutter access for homeless veterans

(Washington D.C.) – U.S. Senator Patty Murray, a senior member of the
Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, on Thursday introduced emergency
legislation that would reverse a sudden and largely unexplained
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) policy change that has restricted
homeless veterans' access to housing and services. Senator Murray’s
bill, The Homeless Veterans Services Protection Act (S. 2179), reverses a
new VA policy by allowing community organizations who receive funding
through the VA’s Grant and Per Diem (GPD) Program to once again count
veterans who don’t meet certain length of service or discharge
requirements when calculating the federal GPD allotment that often
allows these facilities to operate.

Just two weeks ago, a VA memo went out to these programs
forbidding them from counting new homeless veterans who didn’t serve for
two years or were given certain “other than honorable” discharges from
service. That instruction meant that community organizations in
many instances had to begin denying homeless veterans housing, and
reversed the standard that VA and these providers have used for two
decades. No contingency plan was given to provide for the veterans who
would be turned away.

“This is federal bureaucracy at its most heartless,”said Senator Murray. “For
the VA to suddenly tell homeless providers that they are limiting a
successful, 20 year-old program in a way that will put more veterans on
the streets, defies all common sense, particularly when this
Administration has set the bold and commendable goal of ending veterans
homelessness by 2015. If this is a question of cost the VA needs to come
forward and say that and I will fight just as hard for funding as I
will to restore eligibility.”

The change also affects the critical Supportive Services for Veteran
Families program, which allows VA to award grants to organizations that
assist very low income families living in or transitioning to permanent
housing by providing them with a range of supportive services.

UPDATE:
Monday morning VA announced that they would temporarily place a
moratorium on the policy change after Senator Murray introduced
legislation to reverse it. However, the VA has indicated that change is
only temporary until a final legal opinion, which is expected to
reaffirm this ban, is issued.

It would appear the VA doesn't grasp concepts like accountability or
transparency. This is a huge change they made and they did so without
informing Congress. As Senator Murray notes, this impacts a significant
number of veterans.

Along with hiding it from Congress, the VA hid the move from the public.
The last time the VA felt the need to inform the public about the
issue of homeless veterans was in the January 14th press release
entitled "Grant Program One of Many VA Initiatives to End Veterans' Homelessness."
The Secretary of the VA Eric Shinseki is quoted in the release, "Those
who have served our Nation should never find themselves on the
streets, living without hope. These grants play a critical role in
addressing Veteran
homelessness by assisting our vital partners at the local level in their
efforts. We are making good progress towards our goal to end Veterans’
homelessness, but we still have work to do."

Those words ring hollow. Eric Shinseki promised to keep Congress
informed after the first big scandal of his tenure. We covered it here,
the House Veterans Affairs Committee on October 14, 2009.
When the country was aghast to learn the veterans attempting to attend
college on the GI Bill were instead taking out loans and suffering
because the VA couldn't get the checks out. The press, so eager to prop
up the White House, looked the other way and refused to report this
statement Shinseki made in the hearing:

I'll be frank, when I arrived, uh, there were a number of
people telling me this was simply not executable. It wasn't going to
happen. Three August was going to be here before we could have
everything in place. Uh, to the credit of the folks in uh VA, I, uh, I
consulted an outside consultant, brought in an independent view, same
kind of assessment. 'Unless you do some big things here, this is not
possible.' To the credit of the folks, the good folks in VBA, they took
it on and they went at it hard. We hired 530 people to do this and had
to train them. We had a manual system that was computer assisted. Not
very helpful but that's what they inherited. And we realized in about
May that the 530 were probably a little short so we went and hired 230
more people. So in excess of 700 people were trained to use the tools
that were coming together even as certificates were being executed.
Uhm, we were short on the assumption of how many people it would take.
We based our numbers on the Montgomery GI Bill which is about a 15
minute procedure. The uh chapter thirty-three procedures about an hour
on average, maybe an hour and 15 minutes. So right off the bat, we had
some issues with assumptions. Uh, we are still receiving certificates of
enrollment. This week alone, we received 36,000 certificates of
enrollment coming from schools who are working through the process and
we put them into the execute of providing those checks -- three checks.

Get it? He was told there were problems, he then hired a consultant who
said the same thing. But he refused to tell Congress, he refused to
tell the public. Some veterans were still waiting in December and those
with a child or children noted repeatedly that since they were still
waiting for the checks they should have received the previous August or
September, there would be no Christmas for their kids.

Heads should have rolled.

They didn't.

And in all the subsequent scandals we've heard Shinseki do the
Accountability Comedy Routine. That's when a government official says,
"I take accountability." They say that -- and here's the joke -- then
they don't resign and they're not fired. "I take accountability" really
just means, "I'm bored, let's move on."

General Eric K. Shinseki (Ret. USA), Secretary of the
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), has continuously failed our
Military Veterans, including failing to file and execute disability
claims in a timely manner and to provide quality healthcare and housing
for disabled homeless Veterans, particularly in Los Angeles where
there’s already a National Veterans Home established 125 years ago, but
the buildings are vacant and rat-infested while the land is
misappropriated for non-Veteran use.It’s well-documented that nationwide the VA has a shameful back-log
of over 900,000 disability claims with Veterans waiting up to 650 days
to get necessary healthcare care and disability benefits.During a recent Senate Hearing, members of the Senate Veterans
Affairs Committee demanded the VA turn over its internal performance
data to give Congressional lawmakers direct insight as to why the agency
is so dysfunctional.Consistent with the VA’s modus operandi, Allison Hickey, the VA’s
undersecretary for benefits, was evasive, vague, dismissive,
non-cooperative and refused to turn over requested data.

Think about it: If the VA openly and defiantly stonewalls the Senate
Veterans Affairs Committee and denies them pertinent information, what
must it be like for lonely disabled Veterans in the isolated office of
intimidating and confrontational VA bureaucrats?

Look at the way the administration responds to whistle-blowers? It's
all out war. NSA whistle-blower Ed Snowden is demonized and threatened
by the White House. But, as Glenn Greenwald (Intercept) points out today, that's not the case for all leakers:And now, Keith Alexander’s long-time deputy just fed one of the most pro-NSA reporters in the country, the Los Angeles Times‘ Ken Dilanian, some extraordinarily sensitive, top secret information about NSA activities in Iraq, which the Times published in an article that reads exactly like an NSA commercial:

FT. MEADE, Md. — In nearly nine years as head of the
nation’s largest intelligence agency, Gen. Keith Alexander presided over
a vast expansion of digital spying, acquiring information in a volume
his predecessors would have found unimaginable.

In Iraq, for example, the National Security Agency went from
intercepting only about half of enemy signals and taking hours to
process them to being able to collect, sort and make available every
Iraqi email, text message and phone-location signal in real time, said
John “Chris” Inglis, who recently retired as the NSA’s top civilian.The overhaul, which Alexander ordered shortly after taking leadership
of the agency in August 2005, enabled U.S. ground commanders to find
out when an insurgent leader had turned on his cellphone, where he was
and whom he was calling.“Absolutely invaluable,” retired Gen. David H. Petraeus, the former
U.S. commander in Iraq, said in an interview as he described the NSA’s
efforts, which led to the dismantling of networks devoted to burying
roadside bombs.

John “Chris” Inglis just revealed to the world that the NSA was–is?–intercepting every single
email, text message, and phone-location signal in real time for the
entire country of Iraq. Obviously, the fact that the NSA has this
capability, and used it, is Top Secret. What authority did Chris Inglis
have to disclose this? Should a Department of Justice leak investigation
be commenced? The Post, last July, described Alexander’s “collect-it-all” mission in Iraq which
then morphed into his approach on U.S. soil (“For NSA chief, terrorist
threat drives passion to ‘collect it all,’ observers say”), but did not
confirm the full-scale collection capabilities the NSA had actually
developed.

The above should lead to outrage and to answers. We'll get to what
everyone's missing in terms of Iraq today but let's note what they're
missing in terms of 2005 and 2006.

What liars. I mean Petraeus can't keep it in his pants and refused to
stand up for himself because he was threatened with losing his military
pension.

This is what they're selling?

We ignored this crap when the Los Angeles Times ran it because
it's written by a stooge and clearly there were no editors around.
Alexander Zavis, where were you? If you didn't look at it before it
was published, you should have noted it when it was.

What's wrong with this 'reporting'?

The overhaul, which Alexander ordered shortly after taking leadership
of the agency in August 2005, enabled U.S. ground commanders to find
out when an insurgent leader had turned on his cellphone, where he was
and whom he was calling.“Absolutely invaluable,” retired Gen. David H. Petraeus, the former
U.S. commander in Iraq, said in an interview as he described the NSA’s
efforts, which led to the dismantling of networks devoted to burying
roadside bombs.

It was so valuable was it? Starting in August of 2005? Letting ground commanders find insurgent leaders?

I'm sorry then why was the 'surge' needed?

Have we forgotten that?

If was so valuable, why was Sahwa needed?

To combat rising violence, Bully Boy Bush 'surged' (sent more US troops into Iraq) and the military cultivated Sahwa.

Do we remember the week of April 2008, when The Petraeus and Crocker Show, was performed non-stop before Congress? The then top-US commander in Iraq, David Petraeus, and then-US
Ambassador Ryan Crocker testified to Congress We reported on those hearings in real time. Let's drop back to the April 8, 2008 snapshot:

Today The Petraeus & Crocker Variety Hour took their
act on the road. First stop, the Senate Armed Services Committee. Gen
David Petraeus and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker are supposed to be
providing a status report on the Iraq War. They didn't. In fact,
Petraeus made clear that the status report would come . . . next
September. When the results are this bad, you stall -- which is exactly
what Petraeus did.

The most dramatic moment
came as committee chair Carl Levin was questioning Petraeus and a man
in the gallery began exclaiming "Bring them home!" repeatedly. (He did
so at least 16 times before he was escorted out). The most hilarious
moment was hearing Petraeus explain that it's tough in the school yard
and America needs to fork over their lunch money in Iraq to avoid
getting beat up. In his opening remarks, Petraues explained of the
"Awakening" Council (aka "Sons of Iraq," et al) that it was a good thing
"there are now over 91,000 Sons of Iraq -- Shia as well as Sunni --
under contract to help Coalition and Iraqi Forces protect their
neighborhoods and secure infrastructure and roads. These volunteers
have contributed significantly in various areas, and the savings in
vehicles not lost because of reduced violence -- not to mention the
priceless lives saved -- have far outweighed the cost of their monthly
contracts." Again, the US must fork over their lunch money, apparently,
to avoid being beat up.

How much lunch
money is the US forking over? Members of the "Awakening" Council are
paid, by the US, a minimum of $300 a month (US dollars). By Petraeus'
figures that mean the US is paying $27,300,000 a month. $27 million a
month is going to the "Awakening" Councils who, Petraeus brags, have led
to "savings in vehicles not lost". Again, in this morning's hearings,
the top commander in Iraq explained that the US strategy is forking over
the lunch money to school yard bullies. What a [proud] moment for the
country.

Crocker's entire testimony can be
boiled down to a statement he made in his opening statements, "What has
been achieved is substantial, but it is also reversible." Which would
translate in the real world as nothing has really changed. During
questioning from Senator Jack Reed, Crocker would rush to shore up the
"Awakening" Council members as well. He would say there were about
90,000 of them and, pay attention, the transitioning of them is delayed
due to "illliteracy and physical disabilities."

Here's the conventional wisdom about the U.S. troop surge in Iraq: By
2006, Iraq was in chaos. Many Americans called for the U.S. to get out.
Instead, President Bush sent in 30,000 additional troops. By the end of
2007, Iraq started to stabilize, and the move took on an almost mythic
status.

Bowman then spoke to the New American Foundation's Doug Ollivant who
stressed Sahwa and how he believed it drove down the violence.

Now whether you go with one or the other or both, you have to wonder why
they were needed if the NSA had this miracle cure in August 2005?

Of the disclosure of the NSA spying program in Iraq, Glenn Greenwald
writes, "This demonstrates how brazenly the NSA manipulates and exploits
the consultation process in which media outlets are forced (mostly by
legal considerations) to engage prior to publication of Top Secret
documents: They’ll claim with no evidence that a story they don’t want
published will 'endanger lives,' but then go and disclose something even
more sensitive if they think doing so scores them a propaganda coup."

He'x exactly right, this disclosure was propaganda.

But someone needs to point out that if it was so amazing -- it wasn't --
that's part of the propaganda, why, almost two years later, was the US
paying Sahwa and sending 30,000 more US troops into Iraq (while also
extending the stay of service members already in Iraq)?

A real reporter -- Ken Dilanian isn't one -- would have thought to
question that. The editors of the paper should have caught it.

The program clearly didn't work. Possibly that was due to it sucking up
more information than the NSA workers could go through in an average
day of work. That would jibe with what intelligence officers in Iraq
stated throughout the Iraq War. It would also demonstrate that the NSA
failed, their program was a failure. Since clearly they have been caught
lying -- had the program worked from August 2005 forward, there would
have been no need for a 'surge' or for Sahwa, the press should be all
over them.

Instead, no one's calling this nonsense out.

Let's move over to something more current with regards to the NSA's actions in Iraq.

In 2012, protesters were being tracked by their cell phones and their
calls were being listened in on. By 2013, a new 'trick' emerged, cell
phone and net communication was being shut down. This also happened in
the lead up to encircling Falluja and Ramadi earlier this year. Where
was prime minister and chief thug of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki getting this
techonology? Or was the NSA executing these attacks on behalf of Nouri?

Nouri's assault on Anbar Province hasn't brought peace. It has killed a
number of civilians. It's around 400 now just from Nouri shelling residential neighborhoods in Falluja. Today, for example, NINA reports Nouri's shelling left 2 children dead and two more injured.

When Nouri bombs these neighborhoods of home, we are aware -- aren't
we?, that he's getting 'intel' from the United States. That's the deal
he walked away with November 1st.

Barack apparently wants to bathe in the blood of Iraqis. There's news on the White House supplying Nouri with arms. Allen McDuffee (Wired) reports the
US Congress was informed by the Pentagon that three weapons deals with
Iraq are near completion. He quotes Brookings Institution's Michael
O'Hanlon stating, "I believe our national strategy towards Iraq might
soon need to be
reassessed. Business as usual with arms sales to a government that is
in some ways
stoking an internal conflict may need to be rethought. I'm not sure any arms sales make sense, or at least not any
new ones, until we see Maliki stop harassing people like [former Iraqi
deputy prime minister Rafi] al-Issawi." McDuffee notes:

In 2011, as finance minister, al-Issawi warned of the risks of providing arms to a sectarian army.“It is very risky to arm a sectarian army,” el-Issawi told the New York Times.
“It is very risky with all the sacrifices we’ve made, with all the
budget to be spent, with all the support of America — at the end of the
day, the result will be a formal militia army.”

Mass arrests have been taking place in Anbar and throughout Iraq since
Nouri launched his assault on December 30th. But now they've increased
to the point that the press has to start addressing it. Which is
difficult in a country where reporters who criticize Nouri end up
arrested, sued or dead. That does explain why Asharq Al-Awsat's report today carries no byline but does note:

Speaking exclusively to Asharq Al-Awsat, an Iraqi MP in the
Mutahidoun bloc, Mazhar Al-Janabi, said: “As the Commander-in-Chief of
the Armed Forces, Maliki is responsible for the crisis and its outcomes.
He also bears responsibility for the widespread arrests currently
taking place in the Baghdad Belts.”Janabi accused Maliki and the security forces of disproportionately
targeting Sunnis, who make up the majority of the population of Anbar.

“Arrests of innocent people from a specific demographic in specific
places means there is a complex failure in managing the security file,”
he said, calling on the government “to identify the enemy so that we
[can] all unite in confronting it.”

In Iraq today, security means lawlessness and the
rule of law means the rule of sectarian militias, especially the
US-trained Special Forces now attached directly to Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki's office. The familiar scenario for victims of arbitrary
arrests goes like this: First, they are accused of being terrorists, so
they are detained at a secret prison whose existence is denied by the
Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Human Rights. Then, they are
tortured to obtain forced confessions, held for months without trial
mostly with the aim of extortion from families; then, sentenced to
either long-term imprisonment or death penalty, based on the forced
confession or information supplied by secret informants.

In some ways, this is a reproduction of how the US and other powerful states view human rights and international law.

There has been much controversy over the Iraqi cabinet's approval of a draft Shi'i Personal Status Law
[Arabic], applicable exclusively to the Shi'a in Iraq. The draft law
purports to bring the regulation of personal status--encompassing family
law, wills and inheritance--in conformity with the religious rules
articulated by Shi'a Islam's premier juristic authorities. The cabinet
has sent the draft law to the Iraqi legislature for its consideration
and potential enactment.

The criticisms of the draft law that have appeared in the press
concerning women's rights are broadly correct. However, the focus of
this article will be to demonstrate that the draft law is also sloppily
drafted and poorly organized, so much so that the prominent Shi'a
juristic authorities themselves have sharply denounced it. It is thus
probably best described as a political stunt, cobbled together hastily
and endorsed by Shi'a politicians on the eve of national elections
merely to burnish Islamist credentials rather than actually pass
meaningful legislation.

This was especially surprising since parliamentary elections are so close. Saturday, Mohammad Sabah (Al Mada) reported the commissioners say there are three possibilities:

1) Parliament passes some form of immunity that would bar the
commissioners from being prosecuted for their decisions regarding who
can run for office.2) The election law itself can be modified.3) The elections can be cancelled.

Apparently, there was a fourth option the commissioners didn't consider: Withdraw their resignations.

Speaking exclusively to Asharq Al-Awsat, IHEC member Mohsen
Al-Moussawi, said: “MPs and candidates who were excluded by IHEC for
different reasons and on the basis of judicial resolutions can no longer
appeal to return [to the electoral race] after approving the names of
the candidates who will stand in the forthcoming elections.”“Entities and blocs have to present alternative candidates one day
before the elections campaign starts,” he said. “There is no need for
the parliament to issue resolutions granting immunity to IHEC against
prosecution after the approval of the names of the candidates.”As for how IHEC will deal with potential breaches on the part of the
candidates during the election campaign, Moussawi said: “IHEC signed a
memorandum of understanding with the Baghdad Secretariat and the
Ministry of Municipalities regarding where candidates can post
billboards and posters during the election campaign between April 1 and 29.”

But on progress? Another pot hole appears to have emerged on
the street to progress. All Iraq News reports today,
"The employees of the Independent High Electoral Commission in Siniya
district of nothern Tikrit have resigned due to the threats of the armed
groups."

There's major news for Iraq this weekend regarding the arts. All Iraq News notes Sattar Sa'ad, after three months of competing, won The Voice Arabia
singing contest and that it was announced on Saturday's broadcast which
also included singer Ricky Martin performing two songs in this variation of The Voice franchise. Kadim Al Saher -- a popular Iraqi singer,
songwriter and poet, here for a YouTube channel devoted to his music, acted as Sattar's coach and Sattar now has "a brand new car and a recording contract with Universal Music Group." Nick Vivarelli (Variety) reports:

Aired by satcaster Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC),
The Arab version of “The Voice” wrapped with Saad draped in an Iraqi
flag on stage receiving the trophy from his coach, Iraqi pop music
sensation Kadim Al Sahir.Saad’s victory, which sparked celebrations in the streets of Baghdad, earned him a record contract with Universal Music Group.